Picks and Pans Review: One More River to Cross

"Photographs remind us of what has been," writes Myers in the introduction to this rich portfolio of black-and-white images chronicling the history of blacks in America from 1850 to 1976. Selected from the Library of Congress, university and private collections, the famous faces here (Frederick Douglass, Billie Holliday, Jackie Robinson and more) are somehow less affecting than the anonymous Americans: a proud Civil War infantryman, an aging slave in repose, women frolicking at the seaside. These portraits give this collection its heart and soul. (Harcourt Brace, $40)